A review of, the book, “Gas Wars” by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta with Subir
Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri; published by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta;
Price not stated.

I understand that this book had a tough time getting published.
Apparently Penguins who were initially asked to publish the work and
had agreed to do so, developed cold feet when they were allegedly
threatened with “consequences”. The main author then looked at various
other options all of which came to nought when the prospective
publishers saw the sub title, “Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis”. In
the event the main author became the publisher with the assistance of a
retired editor of a large publishing house.

And that is unfortunate, because the work needed a lot of editing and
that did not happen. So the book is replete with repetitions ad
nauseam. Perhaps the various parts were written at various points in
time and only later collated for publication in a single book. If these
parts had been properly edited, the work would have been tighter and
more readable. Considering the importance of the subject and what
Thakurta has to say about it, it would have attracted much more
readership and more people would have read of the nefarious deeds of
one the largest companies of India and how they are helped in their
underhand deals by some of the politicians and some bureaucrats.

The government of the time had decided that the existing public sector
oil companies were not good enough or were overloaded with their
existing portfolios and/or would not help the ministers in garnering
slush funds for the party in power or for their own private kitties.
They therefore decided to take the “help” of their friends in the
private sector for exploration for gas off the coast of Andhra Pradesh
and subsequently supply gas to the citizens of India. The existing
public sector oil/gas companies were not only capable of doing the
manifest job, and surely at a fraction the cost in terms of both time
and money to the people of India but then the latent but more important
job of supply of money to individuals in the bureaucracy and in the
political parties would have been made difficult.

But the story is not all dark as there were many bureaucrats who,
disgusted with the dark doings of the band of capitalists and their
running dogs helped Shri Tapan Sen, the lone leftist MP in getting the
sordid details of the self serving of the cronies to get even richer
than they already were.

One slightly irritating habit of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (PGT), the lead
writer is to signify himself too often as such i.e. as “lead writer of
the book” throughout the book. This breaks the flow of the narration
apart from giving a sense of self-aggrandisement on the part of the “lead”
writer.

It is a sacred rule in bureaucracy that the terms and conditions of a
tender, once awarded cannot and will not be changed on pain of death
usually to the lowly bureaucrat who dares to do so or to suggest any
changes favourable to the contractor. I know it through my experience
as a Public Sector bureaucrat. In this case not only was the price of
gas increased to almost twice the stipulated rate well before the
stipulated time but also when already there were allegations of the
company not providing the amount of gas promised. The allegations said
that Mukesh Ambani was waiting for the rise in price to supply more
gas. The excuse given by the company was that the difficulties faced by
them in procuring the gas were more than had been bargained for. Once
again the normal terms of tender would have not bothered about the
tribulations of the contractor after the contract was awarded and the
company would have faced legal action because it had not delivered gas
at the rate agreed to.

The book has several appendices covering many other sweet deals where
the Ambanis profited vastly, needless to say at the cost of the people
of India.

A book detailing with matters of such national importance should have
created storms. Strange to say if there have been any they were only in
tea cups. I haven’t come across reviews of this book in any significant
numbers in any significant periodicals. Why? Well one reason perhaps is
the lack of proper readability mentioned earlier due to scant editing.
The other reason could be fear. Possibly the powers that be have
understood that banning the publication/sale creates more interest in
the targeted work. But a conspiracy of silence, albeit a forced one,
after the publication buries the book more efficiently.